Shooting the Dead
by Higuchimon
Summary: Crime in Satellite is a way of life and death. One death, however, is going to be a little too strange, even where Satellite is concerned.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds  
><strong>Title:<strong> Shooting the Dead  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Kiryu, Kazama  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 3,262||**Status:** Complete  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Horror, Crime||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place sometime not too long before the Dark Signers arc gets into full swing. Definitely before Kiryu and Yuusei cross paths then.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Crime in Satellite is a way of life and death. One death, however, is going to be a little too strange, even where Satellite is concerned.

* * *

><p>"I thought they picked up all the trash around here and took it to the recycling center." Kazama frowned as he peered into the alleyway. He rubbed his nose; in truth, it didn't really smell <em>that<em> much like rotting garbage. He'd smelled something like it before, but his brain didn't make the connection right away.

"That's what they're supposed to do," his partner agreed as they moved farther down the narrow alley. "Guess they missed some. Well, it's Satellite. What do you expect?" He shrugged; he'd spent enough time patrolling Satellite not to care anymore about what they found. At least, that was what he kept telling Kazama.

Both of them stopped in their tracks a few steps later. Kazama swallowed once or twice, trying to get the words past the solid lump of revulsion which had just lodged in his throat. "That's...not trash."

Running footsteps told him Yamazaki wasn't sticking around to offer a second opinion, and the sound of someone losing their lunch explained exactly why. Kazama was glad he'd skipped his or he might have done the same. Somewhere in the back of his mind floated the thought that his partner wasn't as hardened to what could happen in Satellite as he'd told everyone he was.

Regardless, he had work to do. He didn't want to breathe in too deeply, but he had to get closer and see what he could find out. It was dead, that was for certain. He was also certain it had once been human. Probably no more recently than the night before.

He made a mental list of everything he could see that might be important. Blood splattered all over the walls and pooled in dried circles on the ground. The death had to have happened some hours earlier; most of the blood was dry, but there were still a few moist puddles here and there. Flies buzzed around, enough to make his stomach churn, but he forced the nausea down.

Not that far from the body Kazama spied something he'd only seen in old movies and here in Satellite: an actual bullet-firing gun. _Preserve the evidence,_ he reminded himself. So far as he could tell, there weren't any bullet holes in the victim, so maybe that belonged _to _whoever this had been?

His partner trudged his way back over to him, wiping his mouth as he did. "I put in a call. They're going to send over a helicopter and a forensics team to check for evidence."

"I already found some." Kazama jerked a thumb toward the gun. "Can't tell if it's been fired or not though."

The other peered over, careful not to touch anything. "Beats me. I don't mess with old-time things like that." He looked back at the body, a faint tinge of green under his skin. "What I'm wondering is what the hell did that in the first place. That wasn't any gun."

Kazama glanced away from the body in time to see a couple of locals peering down the alleyway. "Crime scene. Stay out." Yamizaka waved at him to stay where he was while he went to guard the end of the alley and make sure curious onlookers didn't wreck anything. Kazama was fine with that. Something unusual had happened here and he wanted to know what it was. Satellite held the dregs of society but even they didn't deserve endings like this. He couldn't think of anyone who might deserve it.

As he waited, the sun rose just a bit higher, sending a shaft of light into the alley. Kazama followed it with his eyes absently, then frowned when it led to a faint gleaming. If it wasn't as pale as it _was_, he might not have seen it at all. He kept his hands off it, but stared until he was certain of what he saw.

_Silver hair?_

* * *

><p>"Yuusei..." He called the name out lightly, not expecting to see any results. He was too far away from where Yuusei lived. But there was always a chance, and Kiryu liked to take chances. That was why he'd parked his D-Wheel and now wandered the streets on foot. He'd go back and get it once he'd covered a few more blocks. Until then, he peered around corners and into the ruins of buildings, calling every few moments. "Yuusei..."<p>

He paused at the shattered remains of what had once been a stoplight. He knew this area, or had known it once. It wasn't safe to linger. More than one person had lost their possessions or worse to the gangs that roamed here.

A thin smile bent his lips. Some of them had lost those things to _him_. To him and Team Satisfaction...

_I'm not satisfied yet._ He would be, though. When he found Yuusei and killed him. After he made him suffer. So much. Oh, so very much. He wasn't sure if eternity was long enough for Yuusei to suffer as he had.

Which way, which way...oh, what did it matter? He had all of Satellite and the City to search through if necessary. He might not have all the time in the world but he would take it all if he so chose. No one would stop him. No one could stop him.

He wandered down the street, plucking absently at his shirt. There was an odd smell to it, he noticed. It was probably him. He hadn't changed it since he'd died and he'd died wearing it.

_So? It's not like I can go to a laundromat!_ He giggled at the very thought of doing his laundry and having to ask some random person for tips on how to get blood out of his clothes. He was fairly certain he didn't even know how one _did _laundry. Crow had always handled matters like that before. He was certain it involved water, but other than that, he had no idea.

"Hey! Hey, you!" It wasn't Yuusei's voice. Kiryu didn't pout, but he decided whoever that was would have to pay for annoying him and not being Yuusei. He spied a gesturing hand coming from an alleyway not that far away. He tilted his head back, pondering his options. He could go over there and tear whoever it was to shreds or he could continue his search and tear Yuusei to shreds that much sooner. "Hey! You duel?"

That caught his attention. He _was_a duelist, after all. He strolled over, his hair being teased this way and that by the ever-growing wind. It was one of those nights that could have come straight from a horror movie. Full moon overhead, with clouds scudding by, the wind sighing through empty alleyways...

The dead walking the streets.

Kiryu liked horror movies.

He peered into the alleyway and saw the other beckoning again. "What is it?" He doubted the other had good intentions, much less anything like a good card or the potential for a good duel. This _was_ Satellite, after all. He'd defeated every duelist worth dueling here and most of the ones that weren't worth dueling either.

"Hey, come on back here! This card is awesome. I'll give it to you. I can't use it. But you look like the kind of guy who'd want it."

Kiryu wondered if this guy was new at mugging people. He smiled. If so, he wouldn't have a chance to get any better at it. He'd already made up his mind on that.

"Really? What is it?" An especially thick cloud moved away from the face of the moon, sending a silver shaft of light down into the alleyway and giving Kiryu a perfect view of the man's face. Not that he needed it; darkness was the same as daylight to a servant of the Earthbound Gods. The moonlight did make the other twist around in an attempt to conceal the gun in his hand, though. Kiryu smiled.

"It's really powerful." The mugger glanced down as if to check the card, but Kiryu wasn't surprised to see he held nothing but that gun in one hand. "Wingweaver. Almost three thousand attack points. I bet you could use that, couldn't you?"

Definitely an amateur.

As Kiryu took that last step, peering forward as if to see the card better, the mugger lifted up his gun and pointed it toward him. "Okay, pretty boy, hand over all your valuables. If you have any."

"Valuables?" Kiryu blinked with as much innocence as he could muster up. There wasn't much of it. "What makes you think I have any?" He glanced down at the gun, then back up at the stranger. "Does that actually shoot bullets?" He'd seen guns like this before, but this was the first time he'd had one pointed at him. Most people tended to use something more civilized, like a duel disk. Kiryu was certain he could improvise when it came to dealing with this, though.

The mugger leveled his gun at Kiryu's chest, eyes narrowing and teeth grinding. "I said, hand over your valuables."

"And if I don't have any?" All that Kiryu really owned was his new deck, his _special _deck, and he wasn't going to let anyone have that.

The sound of the gun being cocked might have disturbed other people. Kiryu wasn't other people. "Then I just go ahead and kill you." If it hadn't been for the slightest hint of a trembling in the other's arms, Kiryu might have even believed that.

Not that it mattered. Instead, he took two quick steps forward and wrapped his hand around the other's wrist, pulling it forward so that the gun rested on his chest. "If you don't shoot, then I will."

He was close enough to see the other's dark eyes widen in surprise, his jaw dropping a little. He was also close enough to get a whiff of breath that hadn't known what a toothbrush was in far too long. He leaned over and returned the favor, exuding the odor of the grave.

"Well? I don't have anything valuable on me. You said you'd shoot. I don't have time to waste on people who can't keep their word." He'd _never_ dealt well with people breaking their promises to him. He slid his hand down to the gun's trigger as the other gibbered and fidgeted, trying to pull back and unable to move a muscle. "Idiot."

Kiryu pulled the trigger, a wild, insane smile twisting his features. Then he staggered backwards, clutching at his blood-drenched stomach, and fell to the ground, eyes closed, several locks of hair drifting to cover his face.

All was silent in the alleyway for a few moments before two trembling footsteps sounded. Even the wind died down, leaving a kind of emptiness in its wake.

"You are crazy. Nuttier than a fruitcake." Gravel crunched underneath feet as the mugger started to turn around.

"You really wouldn't believe how many people tell me that." Kiryu stood up and brushed himself off. "Did you want to try again?" He smiled the kind of smile that sent chills down the spines of grown adults. "Not that it will do you any good, but I thought I'd let you try."

Hands shaking, the other man pulled up the gun and fired again and again, hitting Kiryu a few more times, while others went wild, slamming into the alley walls. Kiryu didn't bother falling this time when the bullets hit him. When at last the gun clicked empty he reached out to seize the other by the neck.

"My clothes weren't that great when I _got_ here. Now they have holes in them. And it's _all your fault_."

The mugger attempted to say something, or so Kiryu presumed, given that his lips were working and odd mumblings worked in the deepest part of his throat. There was just one problem with that: Kiryu didn't give a damn about what the mugger wanted to say.

His hands closed tighter around the other's neck, squeezing with the strength of the undead and the damned. He could feel Ccapac Apu's power rising in him, lending him strength to slaughter the fool. His smile grew wilder and wilder as he imagined Yuusei being where his captive was now. _Oh, Yuusei..._He threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing back from the blood-soaked walls around him.

It wouldn't be long now. He would search until he found him and when he found Yuusei he would kill him. He would defeat him first, though. Then the killing. The _slow_ killing. It would take days, weeks, months, _years_ to inflict all the pain he wanted Yuusei to feel. If eternity wasn't long enough, then he'd make the best use of the time he had.

In the middle of his sweet fantasies, Kiryu realized that his current victim no longer breathed. He frowned and dropped him, waiting for a few moments, just to see...would he...would _they_...

No. They didn't. The dead man remained dead. Kiryu shrugged; apparently the Gods had no need for someone this weak. _Rudger will probably be annoyed I killed a potential sacrifical victim, though._ Once they started their duels against the Signers, every living being would be necessary to give to the Gods. _I don't know about his, but my God would want someone of far better quality than this idiot. _He knew that for a fact. After all, his God had just helped him with this. If Rudger didn't like it, that was Rudger's problem and not Kiryu's.

He checked his clothes again. More hole than cloth they were now. _I think I can fix that._ He could've done it sooner but it just hadn't crossed his mind until now. A moment of concentration was all that was necessary before his rags mutated into the proper wear for Ccapac Apu's servant. He tossed his cape back and stalked out of the alleyway, leaving the mutilated remains and the empty gun behind. He had _much_ more important errands to attend to than casual murder. One couldn't enjoy oneself all the time.

* * *

><p>"This is crazy." Kazama stared down at the open folder and shook his head. Yamazaki said nothing, just sat back with his arms folded across his chest. "You're trying to tell me that all the evidence points to a dead man."<p>

Yamazaki shrugged. "The hair sample, the blood samples that weren't from the victim, the footprints, the fingerprints, all of them traced back to Kiryu Kyosuke."

Kazama glanced down at the picture on the first page of the folder, one of a handsome silver-haired young man with a criminal marker on one side of his face. Kiryu Kyosuke. The name was enough by itself to piss off half the force. "You know that's not possible, right? He's dead."

"I know he's dead. I know it's not possible. I also know I ran those prints myself and that's what came up when I did." Yamazaki shrugged. "Have you got any better ideas?"

From the other side of his cubicle came a new voice. "I do. Someone's trying to cover up what they did by framing a dead guy. Remember, Kyosuke's body disappeared out of the morgue."

Kazama closed his eyes. "You're not falling for that, are you, Kuroki?" He'd heard the story. Everyone on the force had, and Kazama refused to believe it without seeing it with his own eyes.

Kuroki poked his head around the corner. "Look, it makes sense. Everyone knows Kyosuke was scum, right? So if his prints and everything else turn up, even after he died, most people aren't going to look too hard for someone else to blame. Whoever stole the body and killed that guy, it's the same person. Framing a dead guy. It's been done before."

"I think it was Kyosuke somehow." Yamazaki gestured to the folder of evidence once again. "There are only two sets of prints on that gun, one of them the victim's, one of them Kyosuke. There'd be more evidence if it was a set-up."

"Depends on how good the faker is," Kuroki shot back. He tilted his head back to stare up at Yamazaki. "Besides, Kyosuke's _dead_. How's he going to do anything?"

Yamazaki shrugged in that usual philosopical way of his. "Maybe he's a zombie. Or a vampire. You know, one of those undead things that die and come back."

"He couldn't be a vampire." Kuroki shook his head firmly, moving around to lean on the wall and continue the conversation more comfortably. "All the blood was on the ground and the walls, remember?"

Kazama turned away from the argument. They weren't going to get anywhere and in his opinion the evidence was a little too conflicting. He wanted to find an answer, but with everything they had, 'wanting' wouldn't be 'having' for a very long time, if at all. _Maybe I should try to get a transfer out of here. Or at least take a vacation for a while._ He hadn't seen his sister and her family in a couple of years. Hanging out with them would be a lot more productive than staring at a folder of evidence that told him a dead man committed murder and for all he knew, was probably going to get away with it. Security wasn't equipped to arrest, much less try and condemn, the dead. He didn't know if anyone was.

"Kazama, what do you think?" Yamazaki prodded him in the shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Zombie apocalypse or frame-up? One or the other, right?"

"I think I'm going to work on finding out what actually happened while you two argue about what didn't happen." He didn't want to admit it, but just the name of Kiryu Kyosuke sent a chill down his spine. He'd seen the kid a couple of times before he'd died and there was _nothing_ sane in those eyes. _If anyone could come back from the dead just by being too pissed to stay that way, it's him._ Kazamu wanted nothing to do with the dead. He had enough troubles with the living. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to do his job. Ghost, zombie, vampire, someone trying to frame someone else...he'd find out what was going on and put a stop to it.

He started to look through the folder again, trying to find anything that would give him a reasonable starting point. The trouble was, in Satellite, there _weren't_ any reasonable starting points. No one had seen anything. No one wanted to see anything. That put witnesses he could question down to zero.

Kazama had no idea of how long he'd been staring at that when Yamazaki cleared his throat and prodded him again. He rubbed his eyes and looked up. "What?"

"Just got word from up top." From the way Yamazaki phrased that, he didn't just mean their own immediate superiors. He looked...a little nervous, in all truth. "Don't worry about this one."

Kazama blinked a few times. "What?" No one just wrote off a murder case, even in Satellite.

"It's from the director." Yamazaki dropped his PDA in front of Kazama, showing a message that gleamed with official headers and seals. "This case is being filed with the little green men and we're both getting a week's paid vacation because of the stress the case has put on us."

Kazama picked up the PDA and read it through twice. Everything Yamazaki said was there. _Something's going on. _Unfortunately, if Director Goodwin was involved, there wasn't anything he could do about it. He sighed.

_Guess I'm getting that vacation after all._

**The End**


End file.
